Hannibal stood beside his car, dressed warmly in a checkered suit and thick jacket, shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other as his mind raced. He stared up at Alana Bloom's house, which was covered in a thin layer of frost and seemed to glow from every window with the light of a fire within. In his hand, he held a small bouquet of flowers. They were blood red carnations; not in season, but quite appropriate in terms of the meaning he intended to convey.
He had never felt more apprehensive in his entire life. Never before had he found himself in such a position. After Ophelia had been deemed medically sound, she had been whisked away to the cocoon that Alana and Will had created for her. They had all but quarantined her there, coddling her like a child. Hannibal had watched from afar. He had waited patiently for the right moment to present itself. After a few weeks of surveying her from the shadows, Hannibal had decided that today would be the day to strike.
It pained him more than he quite understood to watch Ophelia function without him. From afar he had watched the makeshift family bond, preparing for Thanksgiving, which was fast approaching. Hannibal's stone heart crumbled every time he took his post in the woods outside the house, watching as Will and Ophelia tended to the dogs or kindled a fire. Sometimes she cooked with Alana. Nearly every day, he would park his car just behind a snow bank, allowing himself the slightest view of the house. And nearly every day, he grew more restless. Each time Will touched Ophelia's hand, or brushed a strand of blonde-again hair from her eyes, Hannibal's dark heart trembled.
But today was the day to break that cycle. Hannibal was ready to take her back. He was fully prepared to make her remember. Surely after speaking to him, a switch would flip in her mind and she would know him. He was certain of it.
But still he found himself in quite an uncomfortably vulnerable state. Clutching this bouquet of flowers felt unnatural, as if he intended to make some sort of halfhearted sacrifice with them. As he stiffly approached the front door, wading through snow, he made himself breathe deeply, evenly. He scolded himself. He was Doctor Hannibal Lecter, and Hannibal Lecter feared nothing.
He knocked twice, clearing his throat in the time between the short raps. For an excruciatingly long moment, there was no answer. He knew that they were home, though; he had seen them all milling about through the kitchen window.
Then the door opened, and Ophelia stood before him, bathed in a warm light. He was immediately hit with the smells of fall: cider, maple, and crackling flame. But even more distinguishable was the smell of roses. Much to his surprise, she threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around his torso, as if clinging to the trunk of a sturdy tree. He froze, his arms held aloft, not daring to move, for Alana and Will had appeared, their faces contorted into deep scowls.
Ophelia gasped and jumped away from Hannibal, her face blazing red, "Oh. Oh, I... I'm sorry," she forced a laugh, tugging at a strand of hair, "I don't know why I did that. I'm sorry. C-come in." She stepped away from the door, heat flooding down into her neck and chest as Hannibal stepped into the house, shutting the door behind him and letting the clumps of snow that had collected on the hem of his pants drip to the floor. His skin felt warm where Ophelia had been. It was a welcome feeling.
The three before him looked utterly domestic. Will, his hand on the small of Alana's back, was dressed in his usual fare of flannel, jeans, and wonky glasses. Alana had ditched her professionalism and opted for a cardigan and a seasonally colorful skirt. And, as always, Ophelia radiated, her small frame hidden beneath an enormously lumpy knit sweater and jeans, with leaves and pumpkins in all fall colors obscuring most of her bruised skin. The stitches on her head had been removed, leaving behind a tiny pink line that stretched from her hairline down to her eyebrow. Hannibal wanted nothing more than to trace that little line with the tip of his finger.
"Hannibal," Alana cleared her throat, "What are you doing here?"
He held the flowers out to Ophelia, "A small gesture for our patient."
Ophelia smiled warmly and took the flowers from him, her fingers brushing his, "Thank you! Carnations. Such a pretty color, too."
"They fit in nicely with the..." he gestured to the autumnal and Thanksgiving-themed decorations that adorned the room.
"Totally," Ophelia nodded, "Wanna help me find a vase for them?" She did not wait for a response, skirting past Alana and Will and disappearing into the kitchen. Hannibal followed, confident that they would not deny her this.
"You seem to be feeling much better," Hannibal prompted, watching anxiously as Ophelia stood on the tips of her toes, reaching for a vase in a particularly high cabinet.
"I've been making a list of things I like," she nodded to the notepad on the kitchen counter. It was filled with words and phrases, some of them underlined many times and some scratched out, "I'm sorry," Ophelia turned to him, setting the vase down in the sink, "I just can't place your name. I know it; it's on the tip of my tongue."
"Hannibal," he forced a smile, "Hannibal Lecter." He felt something rip in his chest.
"Right, right," Ophelia furrowed her brows, shaking her head as if scolding herself, "Of course. I feel like I should know that. You looked so familiar back in the hospital, but I just... I don't know." She turned away again and filled the vase halfway, carefully arranging the flowers in a neat bunch. Hannibal watched as she flitted about the room, vase in hand, looking for the perfect place for it.
"So tell me, Ophelia," Hannibal followed her into the living room, where a fire blazed in a great stone fireplace and three mugs of steaming cider sat abandoned on a small table before it, "What do you like? What do you remember liking?"
"You can look at the list if you want," Ophelia nodded back toward the kitchen, "I remember a good bit."
Hannibal started into the kitchen, but Alana and Will blocked his way.
"What do you think you're doing?" Alana hissed. Will skirted nervously around Hannibal and joined Ophelia across the room, where she sat on her knees, arranging the flowers on the table by the fireplace.
"I'm simply paying her a visit," Hannibal's face remained smooth, though he longed to tear her away from Will. He fought the urge to push Alana to the side and throw Will into the fire. That urge was quite strong.
"You shouldn't," she spat, "you shouldn't be here. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, but it's not going to work. I won't let it work."
Hannibal chuckled, "Alana Bloom. You and I see the world in very different ways, but we both want the same thing."
"What, to butcher innocents? I think I'll pass."
Hannibal took a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, "Rude, Alana. Shockingly rude."
"I've got Ophelia on the radar of every FBI agent in the Baltimore area. I can afford to be rude," she glared up at him, eerily knowing. Hannibal was sure that Will had told her everything that he knew, but suddenly it seemed as if Alana had more insight than he originally expected.
Hannibal said nothing, but let a small smile pull at the corners of his lips. Alana proved to be a bloodhound, as she always had been. But he knew that he had the upper hand, no matter how powerful Will and Alana thought that they had grown. Ophelia was an independent mind, a mind full of memories that only he could unlock.
Ophelia shot to her feet, startling all of them, "Opera! I like opera! I think I like opera," she looked down at Will, who still sat on the floor by the table, "Do I like the opera? Have I even been to the opera?"
Hannibal visibly swelled with pride. He let a full grin creep across his face as Alana turned a sickly shade of white.
"Uh," Will looked from Alana, to Hannibal, and then up at Ophelia, "Sure you do."
Without another word, Ophelia turned and scurried past Hannibal and Alana, into the kitchen to retrieve her notepad. She leaned against the counter, scribbling furiously. Hannibal took a few steps toward her and Alana matched his every movement. He ignored the pit bull of a woman, peering cautiously over Ophelia's shoulder at the notepad. The page was full of hastily scrawled words and small doodles of things that perhaps Ophelia could not put words to. It was not as neat and orderly as the page she had showed him just moments ago; it was as if the further she delved into her mind, the more untidy and unclear it became.
"Hannibal," Alana hissed, just softly enough so that Ophelia could not hear, "I may have made a mistake, forcing her onto you before, but I can guarantee that I won't make it again," she looked up at him and pursed her lips then, as if reciting words from a teleprompter, "The scales have fallen from my eyes. I can see."
He simply continued to watch as Ophelia scribbled on the notepad. He did not feel threatened by her reiteration of Will's dramatics in the slightest. The word and influence of an unhinged man and his loyal devotee would be no match for his in any situation. His somewhat reunion with Ophelia had fueled the fire, fed the beast. He was sure he could succeed.
The only problems that he faced were two: the presence of the FBI, ever looming among them, though there were only the four of them in the room, and the simple fact that Ophelia remembered nothing of him. Evidently he existed somewhere in the locked-away recesses of her mind, but for the time being he would simply have to assume that she knew nothing of the events that had transpired between them. It wounded him, as it would anyone. But Hannibal was not used to this feeling, that by caring so deeply for her he had something to lose. Never before had his empathy for humans turned into such dire attachment. In that moment, more than anything, he felt akin to a great predator- beast looming over a fragile bird so that the other predators that circled her could not pounce without meeting his force first.
If only she knew how fiercely he intended to do so.
The other half of the coin lay in the hands of Jack Crawford. If Alana's threats were true, and Ophelia remained under the protection of the FBI, Hannibal would have to tread much more lightly than he would like.
Suddenly, he needed desperately to consult Bedelia. He hated to leave Ophelia even for a moment, but he also knew that nothing could be accomplished if he did not know how to proceed.
"I suppose I should be leaving," Hannibal cleared his throat. There was a collective sigh of relief from Alana and Will, who had appeared again in the doorway.
"Oh," Ophelia's voice was a borderline whine as she turned away from her notepad to face him, "Do you have to? You just got here." There was a smudge of black ink on the bridge of her nose.
"I left a rather hefty stack of paperwork unattended," Hannibal felt another rip when her expression dissolved into a pitiful pout. It looked as if her mind was racing, warring with itself over something that Hannibal would surely never know.
"Alright," her face began to redden, "Well, thanks for stopping by. And for the flowers."
"It was my pleasure," Hannibal knew not what else to say. She suddenly looked quite tired, and painfully fragile. The smell of roses intensified for the smallest of moments.
"I'll, uhm," Ophelia rubbed the back of her neck, staring at the floor, "I'll walk you out, I guess." She did not see Alana and Will exchange furtive glances. Without waiting for a response from Hannibal, she shuffled out of the kitchen and to the front door, where she fumbled with the doorknob for a moment. She pushed the door open, bracing against the the blast of cold air and gestured uncomfortably to Hannibal. He mock-bowed and stepped out into the frigid evening while Ophelia stared hard at the floor. She shut the door behind him and followed him toward his car, leaving Will and Alana to watch them from the window. Her eyes did not leave the snow-blanketed ground until she ran into Hannibal's back.
"Are you alright?" Hannibal peered down at her, "You seem to be elsewhere. Not that your absence isn't warranted; you have been through quite an ordeal."
Ophelia shook her head, finally looking up at him, "Just thinking. Thinking is hard lately." She forced herself to smile. Suddenly it was a very difficult thing to do. It was as if an enormous hole had been punched in her chest, yet she did not know where it had come from.
"Not to worry," Hannibal fought the urge to put a hand on her small shoulder, "You'll find your way back soon enough."
She paused for a moment, then took a deep breath as if she were preparing to fling herself off a cliff, "Were we... friends? I don't really remember you, and I'm sorry, but I think we might have been friends."
"Yes," Hannibal choked, "We were friends." He could feel ripping and tearing in his chest. It took all of his will to remain motionless, expressionless; it would scare her to see anything other than normalcy.
Ophelia's face, on the other hand, was reddening more and more every moment. She rubbed the back of her neck with one hand and fumbled at the sleeve of her sweater with the other. She did not speak, and Hannibal appreciated the silence. It gave him hope that she was thinking, no matter how difficult it was for her. But it still was unimaginably painful to see her struggle so. He wanted nothing more than to tell her everything, to confess everything. But he knew he could not, for fear of wrecking her.
Hannibal's resolve cracked. He reached a steady hand out and, as Alana and Will burst through the front door, noncommittally patted her shoulder. It was all he could safely do, and he knew that. But at least feeling her, alive and healthy, was enough. And it would have to be enough, for Alana and Will appeared beside her then to shelter her. Will put a firm arm around her shoulder; Hannibal was almost proud of him for being so firm. Alana stared him down with a heat that could melt any other man.
"Goodbye, then," Hannibal nodded curtly to Ophelia. She smiled sadly as he ducked into his car and sped off without so much as another glance back at her.
It pained her to be so in the dark. Ophelia knew that something was missing, something was wrong, and something was hanging in the air amongst all of them. It was much more tangible when Hannibal was present, but it still hung there for quite some time after he left. She allowed herself to be led back into the house. The trio went about the rest of their evening in relative silence, for Hannibal's presence was still very much alive amongst them. Ophelia spent the rest of the evening and much of the night hunched over her notepad.
In small, neat letters she wrote "Hannibal Lecter".